Sir,
UMELCO
DRAFT SPEECH BY HON THOMAS CLYDESDALE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 4.12.85
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The White Paper on the Draft Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986
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I rise to express concern about the proposals in the White Paper regarding future nationality of the non-Chinese ethnic minority population of Hong Kong who are British Dependent Territory Citizens (BDTCs). I am particularly concerned about the potentially serious problem faced by those BDTCs who are members of the Hong Kong Indian ethnic community since they are the largest portion of the overall group.
A substantial number of the constituent companies in the Functional Constituency I represent are owned or controlled by Indians in this category. I am therefore well aware of the contribution of the Indian community to the Hong Kong economy over a very long period of time. I believe that the traders represented in the Indian ethnic minority, a high proportion of the whole, are responsible for at least 10% of Hong Kong's external trade by value and for a very much larger percentage of our trade with certain countries. The Indian community is traditionally law abiding and a strong supporter of local social and charitable developments. Many Indians living in Hong Kong were in fact born here as were their parents and grandparents. It is also worth pointing out that a high proportion of the original Indian immigrants were brought here by their British employers. Some were in the military, some in the Police and others were civil servants.
Of the less than 10,000 or so non-Chinese BDTCs here, some 6,000 are Indians, the majority of whom are from families which were settled here before Indian independence in 1947. They came for a variety of reasons and not solely for economic reasons. They came, among other things, because Hong
UMELCO
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